October 19, 2011

Thanks for your interest. We’re thrilled that so many of you visited our firm's web site. Those of you who didn’t should consider a different career. Or go work for one of our competitors.

You all have nice resumes. That’s expected. But we read your cover letter first. This was your chance to tell us why we should be interested in you versus the 90 other people who also want this job.

Unfortunately, many of your cover letters were poorly thought out and badly written. Several were stunning in their awfulness.

Next time you submit your resume somewhere, make sure your cover letter doesn’t get you rejected because of mistakes like these:

No-brainer personality traits.You love working with people? Excellent. This puts you above all the PR job candidates who love working with farm animals.

Hyphenation hate. If your letter reads that “I’m a first class writer with an all out attitude ready to work for a top notch company,” you’re not and you won’t.

Redundant hyperbole over and over. If you use the word passion more than five times, you’re mostly passionate about not using a thesaurus.

A firm and wordy grasp of the obvious.We don’t know if you’re sucking up or if you honestly think we’re impressed by you telling us that “It requires a lot of hard work and an exceptional team of employees for a business to become and remain successful.” Leave the bromidic insights to us pros.

Missing something important. One letter we received was 400 words long and didn’t mention our company once.

A wrong view of how the working world works. We know you want things out of life. We also know we don't want self-absorbed newbies who says things like: “After significant research into your company, I have decided that this position offers me an excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience in a career area in that I am interested in.”

One more thing. You're not writing a novel. If we have to go to the bathroom in the middle of reading your letter, it’s too long.

August 16, 2011

For many years I've criticized Public Relations Society of America for its flowery pretentiousness, and for routinely pontificating on unethical practices without naming names.

So I have to give credit to PRSA CEO Rosanna Fiske for calling out several PR agencies that are working for nations like Libya, Syria and Bahrain.

These firms are "counseling enemies of global democracy; ruthless despots who cut down their own people to save whatever feeble remnants of their legacies may remain," Fiske writes for The Hill's Congress Blog. "When asked to explain their questionable work, most offer a ham-handed response to the effect of: 'We're just the messengers.' This explanation is an insult to all who value transparent and ethical communications from governments and private businesses alike…

"Yes, everyone has the right to have his voice and perspective heard in the global marketplace of ideas. But for U.S. PR firms to represent dictatorships that do not afford that same freedom to their own people is disingenuous to America's liberties and its reputation as a marketplace for dissenting ideas."

Well said. And about time.

It's possible that PRSA's admonishment is too late. For years the organization has emphasized that the role of public relations is effective communications born of good intentions, the so-called "free flow of accurate and truthful information." It has distanced itself from the reality that PR is the business of influence, as if this purpose is inherently unethical. This created today's all-too-prevailing notion that good PR is the end result of itself.

And over time this mushy center made what should be the elevating voice of the profession irrelevant to the companies and agencies that trade in lying, manipulating the truth or working for dictators.

But maybe not. Maybe Fiske's diatribe is the beginning of a new movement. Maybe the scandals that have scarred the nation's confidence in its institutions will embolden PRSA to a new era of advocacy, where the spotlight is unflinching and the battles are epic.

For all Americans, that would be an influence worth having out there.. . . . . . . . .

March 16, 2011

One of the joys of being in PR is trying to explain what you do to bosses, in-laws and parole officers. For some execuflacks, however, it’s either too simple or too guilty to just say that we use legitimate influence strategies to advance business, social and political interests. No. We have to make it sound like we’re all on a hilltop singing We’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (and Read Our Press Release).

Blogger Heidi Cohen compiled an interesting collection of 31 different PR definitions. Many are full of good intentions, some are academic, a few are smarmy.

“Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”

This is of course news to most of my clients, companies that employ PR staffs and most PR people themselves. Come to think of it, I have never heard a CEO yell, “Get the communications director in here so we can adapt mutually with our publics, dammit!”

Many years ago we issued an April Fool’s announcement saying that we were no longer going to call ourselves a PR agency. From now on, we were going to be a Hype Optimization Solutions Enabler.

If we’re trying to be the center of the universe, I still like HOSE better than Mutual Adaptation Helper. . . . . . . . . . . .

Like many PR people, I've done work for public entities and government offices. I understand how public contracts can get people riled up. So it makes sense for you as head of the Public Relations Society of America to argue our profession's relevance in your letter to the Senate Subcommittee of Contracting Oversight. Thanks for that.

But I have to take serious exception with the tone of your letter because you paint a picture that in the long run is far more pejorative than politicians calling us flacks and spin doctors.

Your letter emphasizes that the role of public relations is effective communications based on really good intentions. You imply that taxpayers and their watchdogs have no reason to be anything but thankful for government PR contracts, because our industry's only purpose is to provide information so that we may create mutual understanding and serve the public good by getting people to stop smoking and other nice things.

But this description is spin. Unadulterated, accentuate-the-positive-eliminate-the-negative public relations spin. And everyone knows it.

The truth is that we are in the business of influence.

Sure, we should do things ethically and with a mind toward the greater good. But that's the means, not the end. PR people get hired to achieve someone else's bottom line: sell product, win votes, improve share value, create support, make an embarrassing controversy go away.

The father of modern PR, Edward Bernays, came up with the first true description of our profession when he coined the term, "The Engineering of Consent." He didn't call it "The Informing of the Public About Pressing Social Issues."

Yet over the last two decades this notion has become the great disconnect between PRSA and the working world of PR, especially the consulting side. Out here we get clients by showing we can get results. We only hope our competitors are saying they should be hired because their singular mission is to "advance the free flow of accurate and truthful information."

Not that it's true anyway. Yes, there are many PR people who represent good causes and all things beneficial to children and other living things. But there are also as many PR people – and PRSA members – who represent questionable candidates, fatty (but mighty tasty) cheeseburgers, corporations being sued by the EPA and more than a few controversial public works projects. In almost all of these situations, good and bad, public relations people are packaging and managing information to advance the interests they work for. You're doing the same thing right now.

The point is that public relations people are not journalists. It has never done us any good to pretend we are.

The sooner our profession acknowledges the realities of what we do and why we're hired, the sooner we can deal straight-up with legitimate questions about government paying for our kind of expertise.

March 08, 2010

GBSM, Inc. seeks an exceptional professional to serve as senior executive assistant for our growing corporate communications, public relations and crisis management practice. The position requires one or two years experience in a PR agency, consulting firm or communications department. You must have absolutely superb organizational, administrative, research and project management skills.

Responsibilities include all facets of principal support, scheduling, research and assessment, materials creation, contact management, social networking, conferences and events, distribution, community outreach, media relations, reporting and other areas.

Denver-based GBSM has a 23-year track record in providing management consulting, strategic communications and public affairs services to help clients through the increasingly complex nexus of business, media, government and community. Learn more at www.gbsm.com.

Over the last few months, there have been several news accounts of promotional tactics that signal a common thread of malpractice under the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) Code of Ethics and PRSA Professional Standards Advisories (PSA). … PRSA states categorically that misrepresenting the nature of editorial content or intentionally failing to clearly reveal the source of message contents is unethical.

PRSA’s latest reprimand won’t change a thing. That’s because it doesn’t name, much less admonish, the companies and agencies whose bad behavior was made public in news reports.

For all its authoritative posturing -- the phrase “malpractice under the PRSA code” is downright laughable – statements like this only reinforce the association's growing irrelevance within the multi-faceted, multi-billion dollar influence industry.

Pretty much nobody cares what PRSA has to say about it. Not the pros, and certainly not the charlatans.

And things will stay that way until PRSA becomes more than just another big-talk trade group without the courage to act on its convictions. . . . . . . . . . .

Which makes you wonder what prompted the PRSA Tactics newspaper to include this happy 2009 prediction from "trendspotter" Marian Salzman:

"Barack Obama's hometown of Chicago has become the focus of intense global interest. Its combination of heartland values and big-city, multiethnicity vibrancy could make it the epicenter of a more resourceful and responsible era."

Since 1971, some one thousand thousand Illinois politicians and business people have been convicted of public corruption. This includes 30 Chicago aldermen, three Illinois governors, several city clerks and treasurers, suburban mayors, appointed government officials, judges, lawyers, insurance executives and trucking company owners. . . . . . . . . . .